The use of prepared mixes has greatly simplified the task of preparing baked goods, in particular cakes. These baked goods contain flour, sugar, shortening, leavening and other minor ingredients. To prepare them the consumer adds water, oil and eggs to the mix and forms a homogeneous batter.
When culinary mixes designed for baking in a conventional oven, that is, one using radiant heat, are baked in the microwave oven, a dry, tough, unacceptable cake is produced. When the cake batter is baked in the microwave using a square pan, the outer edges become dry and tough and the center is not completely baked. Even when a round pan is used and the cake is elevated from the lower surface of the microwave oven, a dry, tough cake is still produced. Various methods have been used to compensate for the uneven baking in the microwave oven such as frequent turning of the pan, using tube pans, yet none of these provides a suitable way to prepare a moist, light, high cake using microwave radiant energy as the energy source.
The addition of extra water or extra oil to the cake batter compensates somewhat for the dry tough nature, but the cake becomes unacceptably dense, small and collapsed.
It has now been found that a cake formula that gives decidedly better results than a microwave oven baked cake from commercial cake mixes can be produced if the following conditions are met. The emulsifier system must be a lipophilic emulsifier system present in an amount of from 10% to about 100% of the shortening, and the leavening system must be considerably higher in level than that used in current commercial mixes.
The lipophilic emulsifier system consists essentially of:
1. 13% to 68% monoglycerides; PA1 2. 10% to 55% propylene glycol monoesters; PA1 3. 4% to 40% polyglycerol esters; and PA1 4. 5% to 42% lactylated monoglycerides and/or lactylated propylene glycol esters or mixtures thereof. PA1 a. from about 30% to about 54% sugar and from about 22% to about 43% flour, the ratio of sugar to flour being from about 1:1 to about 1.7:1; PA1 b. from about 2% to about 10% leavening, said leavening consisting of a blend of baking acid and baking soda which when fully reacted should evolve from about 40 mmoles/lb mix to about 195 mmoles/lb of mix of carbon dioxide; PA1 c. from about 6% to about 17% shortening, said shortening comprising: PA1 d. the balance being being conventional cake additives. PA1 A. from about 30% to about 54% sugar and from about 22% to about 43% flour, the ratio of sugar:flour being from about 1:1 to about 1.7:1; PA1 B. from about 2% to about 10% leavening, said leavening consisting of a blend of baking acid and baking soda which when fully reacted should evolve from about 40 mm/lb mix to about 195 mm/lb of mix of carbon dioxide; PA1 C. from about 6% to about 17% shortening; PA1 D. the balance being conventional cake additives.
The leavening system comprises a combination of leavening acids such as sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, and dicalcium phosphate with baking soda. The levels are from 2% to about 10% of the total mix.
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to provide packaged culinary mixes which can be made into baked goods which are more tender, have better eating qualities and better appearance than products made from conventional mixes in the microwave oven.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a packaged culinary mix which produces a cake which is equivalent in eating quality to that prepared using radiant energy in moistness, lightness and tenderness.
Other objects and advantages and features will be apparent from the following detailed description.
Unless otherwise noted all percentages are on a per weight basis.